Engineers to sustainably mine rare earth elements from fertilizer byproduct
By Ashley J. WennersHerron
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually that rare. The 17 metallic elements are ubiquitous in nature and are becoming even more common in technology, as a critical component of microchips and more. The “rare” description pertains to how difficult they are to extract into a useable form. The normal technique to pull them from composite minerals is typically energy intensive and produces significant carbon emissions, and a large portion of rare earth elements are lost in waste from other industrial processes.
To develop a more sustainable process that can retrieve rare earth elements from phosphogypsum, a byproduct of fertilizer production, Penn State researchers were awarded a four-year, $571,658 National Science Foundation grant as part of a collaboration with Case Western Reserve University and Clemson University totaling $1.7 million in funding. Each university is independently funded to pursue a specific aspect of the project, but the project is centrally coordinated by researchers at Case Western Reserve. Lauren Greenlee, associate professor of chemical engineering, is leading the Penn State effort with co-principal investigator Rui Shi, assistant professor of chemical engineering.